The End of the Cold War 1985-1991

Drawing on new archival research, Robert Service's gripping new investigation of the final years of the Cold War - the first to give equal attention to the internal deliberations from both sides of the Iron Curtain - opens a window onto the dramatic years that would irrevocably alter the world's geopolitical landscape and the men at their fore.

Mike From Mesa says:"Behind the scenes look at a pivotal period of time"

A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev

Western interpretations of the Cold War--both realist and neoconservative--have erred by exaggerating either the Kremlin's pragmatism or its aggressiveness, argues Vladislav Zubok. Explaining the interests, aspirations, illusions, fears, and misperceptions of the Kremlin leaders and Soviet elites, Zubok offers a Soviet perspective on the greatest standoff of the 20th century.

Vietnam: A History

In this comprehensive history, Stanley Karnow demystifies the tragic ordeal of America's war in Vietnam. The book's central theme is that America's leaders, prompted as much by domestic politics as by global ambitions, carried the United States into Southeast Asia with little regard for the realities of the region. Karnow elucidates the decision-making process in Washington and Asia and recounts the political and military events that occurred after the Americans arrived in Vietnam.

Calculating the Cosmos: How Mathematics Unveils the Universe

In Calculating the Cosmos, Ian Stewart presents an exhilarating guide to the cosmos, from our solar system to the entire universe. He describes the architecture of space and time, dark matter and dark energy, how galaxies form, why stars implode, how everything began, and how it's all going to end. He considers parallel universes, the fine-tuning of the cosmos for life, what forms extraterrestrial life might take, and the likelihood of life on Earth being snuffed out by an asteroid.

The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy

During the Cold War, world superpowers amassed nuclear arsenals containing the explosive power of one million Hiroshimas. The Soviet Union secretly plotted to create the "Dead Hand," a system designed to launch an automatic retaliatory nuclear strike on the United States, and developed a fearsome biological warfare machine. President Ronald Reagan, hoping to awe the Soviets into submission, pushed hard for the creation of space-based missile defenses.

The Red Flag: A History of Communism

In The Red Flag, Oxford professor David Priestland tells the epic story of a movement that has taken root in dozens of countries across 200 years, from its birth after the French Revolution to its ideological maturity in 19th-century Germany to its rise to dominance (and subsequent fall) in the 20th century.

A Brief History of the Cold War: Brief Histories

The Cold War was an undeclared war, fought silently and carefully between ideological opponents armed with the most fearsome weapons mankind has ever seen. Hughes-Wilson takes a cool look at this war, from the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the USSR thereafter. He examines the suspicion and paranoia -- on both sides -- of the greatest stand-off in history.

George F. Kennan: An American Life

Drawing on extensive interviews with George Kennan and exclusive access to his archives, an eminent scholar of the Cold War delivers a revelatory biography of its troubled mastermind. This is a landmark work of history and biography that reveals the vast influence and rich inner landscape of a life that both mirrored and shaped the century it spanned.

The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East

This is a book rife with revelations, from the secret communications between the Obama administration and the Iranian government to dispatches from the front lines of the new field of financial warfare. For listeners of Steve Coll's Ghost Wars and Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower, The Iran Wars exposes the hidden history of a conflict most Americans don't even realize is being fought but whose outcome could have far-reaching geopolitical implications.

The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal

While getting into his car on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA's Moscow station was handed an envelope by an unknown Russian. Its contents stunned the Americans: details of top-secret Soviet research and development in military technology that was totally unknown to the United States.

When We Rise: My Life in the Movement

From longtime activist Cleve Jones, here is a sweeping, beautifully written memoir about a full and remarkable American life. Jones brings to life the magnetic spell cast by 1970s San Francisco, the drama and heartbreak of the AIDS crisis and the vibrant generation of gay men lost to it, and his activist work on labor, immigration, and gay rights, which continues today.

America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History

From the end of World War II until 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in the Greater Middle East. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere else. What caused this shift? Andrew J. Bacevich, one of the country's most respected voices on foreign affairs, offers an incisive critical history of this ongoing military enterprise - now more than 30 years old and with no end in sight.

Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire

In the tradition of John Reed's classic Ten Days That Shook the World, this best-selling account of the collapse of the Soviet Union combines the global vision of the best historical scholarship with the immediacy of eyewitness journalism.

The American Civil War

Between 1861 and 1865, the clash of the greatest armies the Western hemisphere had ever seen turned small towns, little-known streams, and obscure meadows in the American countryside into names we will always remember. In those great battles, those streams ran red with blood-and the United States was truly born.

How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS

A riveting, powerful telling of the story of the grassroots movement of activists, many of them in a life-or-death struggle, who seized upon scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease. Ignored by public officials, religious leaders, and the nation at large, and confronted with shame and hatred, this small group of men and women chose to fight for their right to live by educating themselves and demanding to become full partners in the race for effective treatments.

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956

At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete.

Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman - from World War to Cold War

When Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill met in Yalta in February 1945, Hitler's armies were on the run and victory was imminent. The Big Three wanted to draft a blueprint for a lasting peace - but instead set the stage for a 44-year division of Europe into Soviet and western spheres of influence. After fighting side by side for nearly four years, their political alliance was rapidly fracturing. By the time the leaders met again in Potsdam in July 1945, Russians and Americans were squabbling over the future of Germany and Churchill was warning about an "iron curtain" being drawn down over the Continent.

The Great Terror: A Reassessment

The definitive work on Stalin's purges, The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968. While the original volume had relied heavily on unofficial sources, later developments within the Soviet Union provided an avalanche of new material, which Conquest has mined to write this revised and updated edition of his classic work.

Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire

For more than 40 years, communism held eight European nations in its iron fist. Yet by the end of 1989, all of these nations had thrown off communism, declared independence, and embarked on the road to democracy.

The Sword and the Shield

This book reveals the most complete picture ever of the KGB and its operations in the United States and Europe. It is based on an extremely top secret archive which details the full extent of its worldwide network. Christopher Andrew is professor of modern and contemporary history and chair of the history department at Cambridge University, a former visiting professor of national security at Harvard, a frequent guest lecturer at other United States universities, and a regular host of BBC radio and TV programs.

The Last Days of Stalin

Joshua Rubenstein's riveting account takes us back to the second half of 1952, when no one could foresee an end to Joseph Stalin's murderous regime. He was poised to challenge the newly elected US president Dwight Eisenhower with armed force and was also broadening a vicious campaign against Soviet Jews. Stalin's sudden collapse and death in March 1953 was as dramatic and mysterious as his life. It is no overstatement to say that his passing marked a major turning point in the 20th century.

True Believer: Stalin's Last American Spy

True Believer reveals the life of Noel Field, an American who betrayed his country and crushed his family. Field, once a well-meaning and privileged American, spied for Stalin during the 1930s and '40s. Then, a pawn in Stalin's sinister master strategy, Field was kidnapped and tortured by the KGB and forced to testify against his own Communist comrades.

Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World

For more than two millennia, Istanbul has stood at the crossroads of the world, perched at the very tip of Europe, gazing across the shores of Asia. The history of this city - known as Byzantium, then Constantinople, now Istanbul - is at once glorious, outsized, and astounding. Founded by the Greeks, its location blessed it as a center for trade but also made it a target of every empire in history, from Alexander the Great and his Macedonian Empire, to the Romans and later the Ottomans.

Kissinger: Volume I: 1923-1968: The Idealist

No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Once hailed as "Super-K" - the "indispensable man" whose advice has been sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama - he has also been hounded by conspiracy theorists, scouring his every "telcon" for evidence of Machiavellian malfeasance. Yet as Niall Ferguson shows in this magisterial biography, the idea of Kissinger as the ruthless arch-realist is based on a profound misunderstanding.

Publisher's Summary

It began during World War II, when American and Soviet troops converged from East and West. Their meeting point, a small German city, became part of a front line that solidified shortly thereafter into an Iron Curtain. It ended in a climactic square-off between Ronald Reagan's America and Gorbachev's Soviet Union. In between were decades of global confrontation, uncertainty, and fear.

Drawing on new and often startling information from newly opened Soviet, Eastern European, and Chinese archives, this thrilling account explores the strategic dynamics that drove the Cold War, provides illuminating portraits of its major personalities, and offers much fresh insight into its most crucial events. Riveting, revelatory, and wise, it tells a story whose lessons it is vitally necessary to understand as America once more faces an implacable ideological enemy.

What the Critics Say

"Thrilling....An utterly engrossing account of Soviet-U.S. relations from WWII to the collapse of the U.S.S.R....A new, concise narration was Gaddis's aim here, and he succeeds royally." (Publishers Weekly)

Maybe the most important book I've ever read (listened too that is.) Very complete, relatively unbiased, and gives alot of context. the Cold War encompassed so much, so many different conflicts on so many different continents, but this book makes it plain.

My eldest son called me while listening to this book on a road trip. He was fascinated by it, and told me to see if Audible had it. The kid has right! This is a fascinating read. The author does a good job of connecting the flow of history from Stalin through Viet Nam through Reagan. Nothing happens in a vacuum. This excellent resource in connecting the dots.
The narration also was excellent. A winner on all fronts!

This book is a summary of major ideas and events. It is does not delve deep into any specific aspect of the so-called “war”. To say this book covers a lot would be a drastic understatement. A quick summary of the material Dr. John Lewis Gaddis addresses in this might be the following: 50 years of US and soviet relations; the rise of three super powers; the fall of the USSR; the rise and fall of ideas such as détente, M.A.D., and their eventual collapse; the Korean & Vietnam war; the covert wars of the Cold War; the rise and fall of political leaders in the USA, USSR, China, and other countries. Dr. Gaddis covers a lot in a very limited amount of words.

I recommend this book to people who have limited or no understanding of the Cold War. After reading or listening to this, readers will generally understand the conflict and be able to narrow their focus. I know after I finished reading this book I had a much better appreciation for how unstable the US political system could look to those outside of it, the political gains of the Nixon administration, and the comparative progressiveness of Gorbachev to other soviet leaders.

If this book is used as an introduction into Cold War material, readers will be highly satisfied with the material, but if a reader is hoping for a in-depth analysis of any specific aspect of the conflict I feel they will find themselves wanting more.

The Path Between the Seas to The Great Bridge ~ Kagan's Peloponnesian War to Gaddis' Cold One ~ Mornings on Horseback to a River of Doubt ~ Tom to Huck ~ Lennie to Charley ~ Cadfael to Cross ~ Rhyme to Reacher ~ Blomkvist and Salander to Wallander and Wallander ~ Moving Cheese or Eating Frogs ~ On the Road and Into Thin Air ~ The End of History to A Short History of Everything to ... well ... everything else.

This is the definitive BRIEF history of the Cold War and well worth the listen. Unfortunately, 8 hours is not long enough for a comprehensive treatment of the era. Would it approached such classics as The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in scope and depth ... the horrors and impact certainly warrant it.

This is a great history book about the cold war. Whenever you hear that a professor writes a history book the first thing that goes through my mind is, are we going to get a real history of events or will we get a PC, have to apology series of events. I'm happy to say that this falls in the real category. YES, you can have a history of the cold war where America isn't the bad guy - for whatever reason that doesn't seem the be the case with many authors even as they write about people risking their lives to flee the Soviet Union. Anyways this isn't a flag waving history of events either, the author I believe does his best to stay even with the events and the story moves quickly -- in fact too quickly. It's clear the author has a very strong level of knowledge on the issue and I honestly wish this book was at least 5 times longer. Regardless the subject matter that is covered is done extremely well.

I hope that Audible makes many more of Professor Gaddis's writings available.

The author says in his preface that this book does not contain any original scholarship and that it is designed for those with no memory and very little knowledge of the Cold War, so I probably shouldn't complain that it is so simple and basic. But I am old enough to have lived through the later years of the Cold War and while I am no historian, I do have an interest in history. There was literally nothing in this book I did not already know -- and on most topics I know far more than was in this short book. It is a brief summary of major Cold War events for beginners, and should appeal to such persons. I do have one big criticism, however, which is that the author seems to regard Ronald Reagan as some sort of genius who single-handedly ended the Cold War, while Gorbachev is dismissed as if he were a simpleton. This is far too simple-minded a view of the end of the Cold War.

The narrator has a nice voice, and did a nice job of holding my interest.

John Lewis Gaddis in The Cold War approaches the Cold War from a number of different perspectives. Each is covered in one of seven chapters and an Epilogue. The most valuable to me were the last chapter “The Triumph of Hope” in which the Berlin Wall falls and the “Epilogue: The View Back” in which he summarizes what the Cold War meant. Individuals looking for a chronological history will not find it here, but the book is insightful and engrossing nonetheless. There are surprises even for those of old enough to have lived through the entire era. I particularly found the sections concerning Eisenhower’s misleading the public initially about Gary Powers and the U-2 interesting. Gaddis follows this theme of dishonesty through the Bay of Pigs and even Nixon’s fiasco. His explanation for FDR’s New Deal in geo-political context is interesting. Along the way, I felt that Gaddis treated every play (Republican and Democrat) in a balanced manner. This is a very good book and worthy of anyone willing to devote the time to it. The reading of Jay Gregory and Alan Sklar is excellent

I am in my 30's and, like most people my age, lived through the cold war without knowing much about it other than Gorbachev had a funny stain on his head. This book enlightened me on the world that was born out of WWII's cessation and lasted through until the first Bush was elected. I think I gained invaluable insight from listening to this audiobook and have a greater perspective on all that was going on right under my nose as a child. The narration was superb.

I really enjoyed listening to this audio book, in particular the way that the author (and narrator) had a compelling way of telling history and making it fascinating. I'm just over 50 years of age, so when so much of the Cold War and other historical events of the time were going on, I like most young people, had very little interest in the events of the day....especially since so much of it was being shoved down my throat in school. I wish I had audible books back then, I just might have been a straight A student! (<: